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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Medical Physics and Imaging
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1401834
This article is part of the Research Topic Challenges in VHEE Radiotherapy View all articles

MOSkin dosimetry for an ultra-high dose-rate, very high-energy electron irradiation environment at PEER

Provisionally accepted
James Cayley James Cayley 1*Yaw-Ren E. Tan Yaw-Ren E. Tan 2Marco Petasecca Marco Petasecca 1Dean Cutajar Dean Cutajar 1Thomas Breslin Thomas Breslin 3Anatoly Rosenfeld Anatoly Rosenfeld 1Michael Lerch Michael Lerch 1
  • 1 Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
  • 2 Australian Synchrotron, Clayton, Australia
  • 3 Department of Oncology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, Lund, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    FLASH radiotherapy, which refers to the delivery of radiation at ultra-high dose-rates has been demonstrated with various forms of radiation and is the subject of intense research and development recently, including the use of very high-energy electrons to treat deep-seated tumours. Delivering FLASH radiotherapy in a clinical setting is expected to place high demands on real-time quality assurance and dosimetry systems. Further, very high-energy electron research currently requires the transformation of existing non-medical accelerators into radiotherapy research environments. Accurate dosimetry is crucial for any such transformation. In this article we assess the response of the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics developed MOSkin, designed for on-patient, real-time skin dose measurements during radiotherapy and whether it exhibits dose-rate independence when exposed to 100 MeV electron beams at the Pulsed Energetic Electrons for Research (PEER) end-station. PEER utilises the electron beam from a 100 MeV linear accelerator when it is not used as the injector for the ANSTO Australian Synchrotron. With estimated pulse-dose-rates of (7.84 ± 0.21) × 10 5 Gy/s to (1.28 ± 0.03) × 10 7 Gy/s, and an estimated peak bunch-dose-rate of (2.55 ± 0.06) × 10 8 Gy/s, MOSkin measurements were verified against a scintillating screen to confirm the MOSkin responds proportionally to the charge delivered and, therefore, exhibits dose-rate independence in this irradiation environment.

    Keywords: skin dose, flash, Dosimetry, VHEE, very high-energy electrons, MOSkin, Ultra-high dose-rate, UHDR

    Received: 16 Mar 2024; Accepted: 04 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cayley, Tan, Petasecca, Cutajar, Breslin, Rosenfeld and Lerch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: James Cayley, Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2522, New South Wales, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.